Introduction

An Intro to Building Full-Stack Dapps on Bitcoin | By Kenny Rogers

Welcome to the Bitcoin Builder's Primer. This course is meant to be a comprehensive guide to building full-stack dapps on Bitcoin. It is composed of two parts that cover different aspects of building on Bitcoin.

The first half of the course consists of teaching how Bitcoin works and how to begin building on it. You’ll soon realize that the amount of things you can build on Bitcoin is relatively limited compared to other chains like Ethereum.

This is by design, as Bitcoin is designed to be as simple, secure, and decentralized as possible. So we instead take advantage of layers in order to add scalability and functionality to Bitcoin.

In the second half of the course we'll explore how to expand what you can build on Bitcoin by adding smart contract functionality using Stacks and Clarity.

We'll do that by building out a basic crowdfunding application. This crowdfunding application will allow us to organize crowdfunding campaigns using sBTC, the decentralized Bitcoin peg on Stacks.

This will allow us to get introduced to the basics of Bitcoin, Stacks, Clarity, sBTC, and how they all connect to each other, although it's only scratching the surface of what's possible.

You'll also gain a holistic introduction to the world of Bitcoin dapp development. The world of Bitcoin development is very fragmented and it can be difficult for developers to figure out what tools they should use and how they should go about building full-stack decentralized applications.

The Bitcoin Primer is an opinionated guide to how to do this using Bitcoin, Stacks, Clarity, sBTC, and React.

If you aren't familiar with how Bitcoin development works, especially the role that L2s play, don't worry, we're going to cover all that.

Stacks is an L2 for Bitcoin that expands the functionality and allows us to build fully expressive decentralized applications and smart contracts that are anchored to Bitcoin.

The ultimate goal is to build Bitcoin financial apps and products that are as practical and easy to use as traditional web2 financial products.

The big, audacious vision of this is that we can do for the economy what Bitcoin did for the money. Money does not exist in a vacuum. It exists as part of an economy with myriad financial tools and instruments that utilize it.

Bitcoin has the potential to usher in a new economy that is built on fairness and truth, but it will not succeed unless we succeed in building an economy on top of it.

It is the opinion of this author that we should do that in a way that seeks to be as decentralized as possible, rather than relying on traditional, custodial systems where the money is decentralized but the economy is not.

That is where Stacks comes in, to allow us to ultimately build an economy on top of Bitcoin that is as decentralized as Bitcoin itself.

After the course, you’ll walk away with a basic understanding how to build dapps with functionality like you might find on Ethereum.

More importantly, though, you'll have been thoroughly introduced to building full-stack dapps and Bitcoin and will have a clear path forward to continue your learning and begin building projects.

As you go through the course, we'll make recommendations on how and where to dive deeper into your knowledge depending on what you are interested in building.

The primary goals of this course are to give you a comprehensive introduction to the entire Bitcoin dapp stack, familiarize you with the basics of how to use it to build full-stack dapps, and provide resources for further learning, building, and getting involved in the community.

There is an entire decentralized economy sitting on Bitcoin waiting to be created. Learning how to build things is the first step in your journey to being a Bitcoin builder.